Repairman allegedly filled ATMs with fakes

UPI News Service, 05/28/2011

A San Francisco ATM repairman has been charged with substituting counterfeit homemade bills for real ones in the machines he fixed.

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Samuel Kioskli, 64, was arrested after a traffic stop in Phoenix two weeks ago, KCBS-TV, San Francisco, reported. He allegedly made crude $20s using a copying machine and placed them in six Bank of America cash machines in San Francisco and one in Daly City, Calif., on July 4, 2010.

San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said Kioskli became a suspect after his wife reported him missing.

"He's not a 21-year-old. This man was in his sixties, and he suddenly decided to flee the area to go for a new life. The why of it is the answer we hope to get in the proceedings," he said. "He did get 10 months of a new life, we're not fully sure what that new life was, but it certainly satisfied him down in Arizona I guess."

Kioskli is back in California and appeared in court Wednesday in Redwood City. Wagstaffe said bank customers who got the phony bills have been reimbursed.